


Years

by EchoThruTheWoods



Category: Before Crisis: Final Fantasy VII, Compilation of Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2020-05-27
Packaged: 2021-03-03 06:01:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24399916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EchoThruTheWoods/pseuds/EchoThruTheWoods
Summary: Everyone grieves in their own way, but the most unsettling thing about it is the way time smooths over the loss, blunts its sharp edges, whether you want it to or not.
Relationships: Vincent Valentine/Veld
Comments: 4
Kudos: 18





	Years

**Author's Note:**

> This piece is based on a roleplay with friends in which Vincent Valentine and Veld are both partners and lovers.

When Vincent had been gone for a year, Veld stopped buying roses to keep on the piano. 

At five years, the piano went into storage. He hadn’t the heart to sell it, nor give it away, couldn’t play it himself, nor bear to hear it sound another note.

He kept the violin, tucked away in its case, in the farthest reaches of a closet. Its presence haunted him, unseen, unheard, a ghost of Vincent’s music. A line of melody repeated itself in Veld’s memory, over and over, the refrain from the song that Vincent had written for him.

After ten years, he no longer listened for Vincent’s voice, his deep tones like the richest chocolate, the darkest coffee, things they had shared on their best and their worst days. The silence in his apartment sang of footsteps and sleeping breaths, echoes that never settled, that wound around his dreams and woke him in the dead of night, to stare at the ceiling until dawn.

Twenty years in, he acknowledged the loss of hope, the finality of mourning. Longing gave way to practicality, to nights and days merged into one as he learned to wield control, managed crisis after crisis, the wheel always steady in his hands. The shadow that walked beside him, the empty space that teased the corner of his eye, never came close enough to touch. He gave the whispers no heed; the helm was his alone.

At thirty years, he knew the shape of things to come, fought them with a desperate intensity that focused on saving what he could, in defiance of all that he had lost. Age and circumstance had burned away everything extraneous, left him webbed with pain and grief, his edges honed, his colors softened to faded bronze. What he’d lost in flesh and bone, he made up for in bloody-minded stubbornness, defying death and disgrace to reclaim his own life and the daughter he barely knew. 

Perhaps it was a fool’s errand, destined to fail; perhaps that one last, frayed thread of long-abandoned hope was his guide. He went to Nibelheim seeking priceless treasure; perhaps, in the most unexpected way, he would find it.

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written anything much in almost a year, so this is more of an exercise than anything else. ;)


End file.
